Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v108.djvu/578

544 of the man in the portrait was not full-colored, but boldly, almost ruggedly modelled. The nose was straight, with square tip; the mouth needed no hair to hide it, for the shape was firm and generous without the beauty that is ideal; and the eyes, full-lidded, had a softness and color rare in a man. The short eyebrows, sweeping upwards, hinted rather at energy than foresight; the figure was easy and not overmassive. There was no jewel about the dress, no single earring and bunch of black ribbon such as delighted the Stuart dandies, but only a silver buckle which clasped the belt confining the shirt, and a seal-ring worn on the right hand. The wig, however, was dressed in the fashionable way—divided into three, with a queue in the centre, and tresses or cadenettes on either side. This was the only point in the portrait in which there was any concession to conventionality.

Clemency looked long at the picture, leaning forward from her chair to gaze defiantly into the painted eyes; and while she leant, the black ribbon about her neck was loosened, and the miniature it bore fell into her lap. She caught it up and looked from portrait to miniature again and again, with a bitter smile.

"So shall you two meet to-night," she whispered,—"you who accuse and you who have betrayed. So shall I—who, if Heaven had not been merciful, might have linked you more closely than friendship could link you—so shall I bring your soul face to face to-night, when no disguise or lie can serve the betrayer. To-night, before cockcrow, shall God measure out His slow justice to the three of us."

She moved to a high desk, lighted another taper, and took out a thin scroll. "For the last time," she whispered to herself, "the very last, lest my courage fail me, my dear, my heart." She laid the miniature of the Earl against her cheek for a moment and unrolled the paper. Her eyes grew bright and hard as she read, her pulse cooler and stronger. One of the tapers sputtered. She paused to trim it, and went back to the beginning of the document, though she knew every word by heart:

"I, Ludlow Debonair Honeyfoot, Earl Oxney, do swear in my death that I die innocent and have no part in any scheme to utter false coin, in despite of His Majestie's order or any command of ye Parliament; that the smelting-furnace and other chattels likewise in no way pertain to me, and are hereby delivered by me to ye officers of His Majestie with the tenement thereto; that I have been decoyed here by those who should hang for it, knowing nothing of the making of either gold coins, pence or medals, whether counterfeiting ye mintage of Rye Towne or of other mints in His Majestie's Realm. Let justice find the guilty—for I " Here the confession ceased abruptly—unsigned. For the "breaking of the golden bowl" had cut off speech and consciousness. Only in the last flickering flashes of life had that bitter cry against his dearest friend reached the sister's ear—a cry born of delirium, of wild remorse, at which she could not guess. At this moment, with agonized inquiry in her eyes, her heart bursting with misery and rage against the slayers of her beloved, her brain seized the name he uttered and took it for the answer to her wild question. Leaning low to look into his face, in a very madness of hunger for his voice, his answer, she saw there all that she took for unspoken accusation. Once again, low and steadily, she had begged for the truth. To her "Who is guilty?" his piteous lips had striven to reply, till, bending low to hear—yet jealously, for fear of losing even for a second the sight of his face in life,—she had heard once more the name she had hoped yet dreaded to hear, the name which, in wiping the stain from one so dear, clove in two the honor of another on whom her thoughts hung in strange gentleness.

Then she curtained the picture deliberately and went away to her own bedchamber.

Here upon the square canopied French bedstead of brass with rose-colored hangings my lady's "highest dress" was set out by her orders—a white one with lace collar and a vest stiff with spangles and silvery beads. The light of a splendid fire made her neck and arms like ivory as she unrobed and robed anew, without haste. Her tirewoman did her best to chatter, but the mistress was deaf to it. In silence